Orlando Pirates were made to sweat before finally squeezing past a stubborn Durban City 2-1 in a thrilling MTN8 quarterfinal at Orlando Stadium on Saturday.
The Buccaneers, who are defending the trophy, looked set for a difficult evening after Durban City fought back from a goal down and forced the match into extra time.
But Pirates eventually found the breakthrough they desperately needed in the 119th minute when substitute Gamphani Lungu struck late to send the home supporters into wild celebrations.
The victory keeps Pirates’ hopes of defending their MTN8 crown alive, but it was far from a convincing performance from the Soweto giants.
Pirates were handed a golden opportunity to take the lead in the first half when Durban City defender Brooklyn Poggenpoel brought down Tshepang Moremi inside the penalty area.
The referee pointed to the spot and Poggenpoel, who had already been booked earlier in the match, was shown a second yellow card and sent off.
Patrick Maswanganyi stepped up to take the resulting penalty and made no mistake, sending the goalkeeper the wrong way to put Pirates 1-0 ahead in the 36th minute.
Playing with 10 men, Durban City refused to surrender.
The visitors came out strongly after the break and were rewarded just six minutes into the second half.
Jean Lwamba restored parity in the 51st minute, beating the Pirates defence to make it 1-1 and giving the visitors renewed belief despite being a man down.
Pirates then pushed forward in search of a winner, but Durban City’s disciplined defensive effort kept the hosts at bay.
The Buccaneers created several opportunities, but their finishing let them down as the visitors continued to frustrate them.
With neither side able to find the decisive goal in regulation time, the quarterfinal went into extra time.
The additional 30 minutes produced more drama as Pirates increased the pressure while Durban City continued to defend with everything they had.
Just when the match appeared destined for a penalty shootout, Lungu came to Pirates’ rescue.
The forward found the decisive goal in the 119th minute, finally breaking Durban City’s resistance and sealing a dramatic 2-1 victory for the defending champions.
The result means Pirates march into the MTN8 semi-finals, but their performance will leave coach Abdeslam Ouaddou with plenty to work on.
Durban City, meanwhile, can take plenty of encouragement from their performance.
Despite playing with 10 men for much of the contest, they pushed the defending champions all the way to the final minutes of extra time.
For Pirates, however, the most important thing was survival.
Their MTN8 title defence remains alive after a night when they were forced to dig deep before finally finding the winning goal.